


Oh, You're an Angel

by Ghostinthehouse



Series: Demon and Angel Professors [16]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Professors, Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Disabled Crowley (Good Omens), Gen, M/M, Multi, Nonbinary Character, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-15 10:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20864858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostinthehouse/pseuds/Ghostinthehouse
Summary: A thin red-haired man appeared at their elbow. "Here, let me." He held out his hands and when Jo nodded, lifted the squirming child from their arms to his own, giving Jo a chance to sort themself and their stuff out.Oneshot





	Oh, You're an Angel

Jess squirmed in Jo's arms as they tried to juggle toddler and papers and bags and phone with too few hands for the task. Coming to the Open Day at the University had sounded a good idea when Mary suggested it, but in practice...

A thin red-haired man appeared at their elbow. "Here, let me." He held out his hands and when Jo nodded, lifted the squirming child from their arms to his own, giving Jo a chance to sort themself and their stuff out.

"Oh, you're an angel."

It startled a bark of laughter from him. "I really wouldn't go that far."

Jo couldn't help but smile back at that.

Jess grabbed for his sunglasses and he angled his head away with practised evasion. "No, you don't. Those stay put, kid." He settled Jess against his shoulder and turned back to Jo, eyebrows arching above the glasses in an expression closer to concern than anything else. "You on your own?"

"My wife's around somewhere," they muttered, stuffing papers into a bag and hitching it out of the way.

"Ah." He nodded, one hand soothing on Jess's back as she calmed right down in his grip.

They looked down at the phone. "She says she's in the Literature section...?"

"Down there, second door on the left," he said, taking his hand off Jess's back to point.

They smiled at him and reached over to take Jess back.

He nodded again, handed her over, and was gone before they could think to thank him or ask his name.

***

"You have children?" Jo ended up asking the Literature professor as Jess grabbed a fistful of his old-fashioned coat and snuggled into a stranger's arms for the second time that day.

He smiled, and his eyes lit up beneath a fluffy halo of white curls. "Just the godchildren. My husband's the one who's good with kids, really." He settled Jess with a murmur, and then went right back to explaining the courses with hardly a blink in between.

Jo felt something in them relax at his words. It relaxed further when the puzzled corner of their brain sorted through the odd-feeling input and realised that it was just that he had been talking for some time and hadn't misgendered any of their family at any point in it. Not even themself. That was - rare and unexpected.

Mary seemed to have noticed it too, because she took her partner Jo's hand and asked, "Dr Fell, what's your position on singular they?"

He raised mild eyebrows. "As used by Chaucer, Shakespeare and countless others before the reactionists tried to unsuccessfully replace it with 'he'? A perfectly valid option, my dears, though I'm aware that some of the other professors here disagree. We have a number of students here who openly use nonbinary pronouns, including singular they, you wouldn't be alone in that if that was what you wished to do."

Jo found themself lost for words. Mary squeezed their hand, offering comfort and reassurance, until they managed to splutter, "How did you... What... Why...?"

There was a gentleness in his face, almost innocently angelic. "My dear," he said, "I have excellent - instincts - where this sort of thing is concerned. I try to make a habit of gender neutral speech, and while I prefer not to assume, I couldn't help but notice you relax when I didn't gender you."

"Oh." Jo clung to Mary's hand like an anchor. "I didn't think I was that obvious."

He smiled again. "Don't worry about it. You weren't, not at all. My husband and I have the unfair advantage there - so often we're the first older queer couple students have come across, while we in turn have taken so many younger people of all genders under our wings."

Jo and Mary looked at each other, then at Jess, who had fallen asleep in his arms as they all talked. At last, Mary said, "Thanks. We'll think about it," and freed her arms to take Jess back.


End file.
